


try to figure out what all this is for

by shinealightonme



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Communication, Established Relationship, M/M, Makeup Sex, Misunderstandings, Post-Canon, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 13:35:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19724725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/pseuds/shinealightonme
Summary: Adam has been acting weird since he came home from school; Ronan finds out why.





	try to figure out what all this is for

Something's up with Adam.

It's not the first time he's acted weird coming home on a school break; he's stressed about grades, or having trouble falling into a different schedule, or -- Ronan suspects, but has never gotten up the nerve to ask -- he misses school while he's home and doesn't know how to handle that. But whatever really causes it, he shakes it off after a day and everything fine.

He's still acting weird on his third day home for winter break sophomore year, though, distracted and thinking hard about something Ronan can't identify. He doesn't like that. He's giving it one more day for Adam to start making sense or else he'll -- do something. Ronan hasn't really figured that part out yet. Irritate him into making sense, probably.

"I want to tell you something," Adam says that afternoon, when they're relaxing in the barn after rounding up all the animals that Opal had let loose and chased around all morning. Ronan tries not to go on alert like a hound that just spotted a fox. "But it's kind of hard to say."

"Are you taking a foreign language or something?"

Adam says, "I started seeing someone."

The words slap Ronan like a tsunami, hit him so hard and so fast that he freezes up. He can't even stop smiling about his stupid joke.

"Because of...everything," Adam continues, with a wave of his hand like he would point out specific _reasons_ that he started seeing someone else, except there's too many of them, so why bother? "I would have told you earlier, but -- I'm kind of embarrassed. And I was afraid of what you'd say."

"What." Ronan doesn't yell or snarl in Adam's face or cry. The words just fall out of him. He sounds broken. "You didn't think I'd be happy about that?"

"Not really," Adam admits. "But I hoped you could see that this was good for me."

Ronan wants Adam to have good things, really, he's _happy_ when Adam has good things, as long as he isn't getting them from _someone else_. He wants to argue, _I thought I was good for you,_ but he's still drowning, no air in his lungs and no telling which way is up.

He would argue, but he doesn't even think it would matter.

"You already made up your mind about this, huh."

Adam runs his finger tips along the floor, sends little clouds of dust dancing up into the sunlight. He hasn't actually looked at Ronan since this started.

"I think so," he says. "Yeah. It's hard to tell. It's been really difficult, and sometimes I don't even want to keep going, and then I think...maybe I'm only doing this because it's hard and because I don't want to, and I'm used to everything being hard." He sighs. "And then I think, yeah, if I'm thinking like that then I really do need this."

It's a snarl of emotion but Ronan follows it pretty well, except that he can't see what that has to do with Adam dating someone else. What, Ronan hadn't been _difficult_ enough for him? Ronan didn't want to make Adam's life more difficult. He wanted to make it better. He thought Adam wanted that, too.

"So what are they like?" He asks. "This person you're seeing."

"Uh." Adam sounds kind of thrown by the question, like he wasn't expecting it. Like it hadn't occurred to him that Ronan would want to know who Adam was replacing him with. "She's smart, obviously. She's...easy to talk to. I didn't think I'd really be able to trust someone who hadn't been here for all of it, but I can, sometimes. And when I can't she gives me space and lets me talk about other things."

Ronan thought it couldn't get worse, but he finds out that there's an entirely new level of jealousy he'd never even imagined. Adam _trusts_ this chick. He can _talk to her_.

"How long has this been happening?"

"Four weeks."

 _Four weeks_. That's so fucking long. That's twenty eight days. That's -- some fuckload of hours.

"You took your time saying anything." That comes out with some emotion, finally, if _nasty accusation_ count as an emotion. Ronan thinks that it's all wrong, that he ought to be trying to make up to Adam, and also that it's not nearly nasty enough.

"I didn't know if it would work out," Adam says. "I only really decided last week that I wanted to keep going, and then I spent basically all our time this week talking about whether I should tell you."

That knocks him flat again. His emotions roll back down the hill, force him to start all over trying to put them back together from scratch.

"She knows about me?"

Adam frowns. "Of course she does, I can't talk about my life without talking about you," and that doesn't help, it just hurts more. If Ronan is _so important_ to him then how can he do this? "I was a little nervous about mentioning that I'm bi. I tried to just slide it in like it wasn't a big deal, but she always notices when I do that, it's kind of irritating."

"And she was fine with that?" Ronan asks, but he already knows that she was. Of course Adam's trustworthy, observant, easy to talk to, perfect new girlfriend would be fine with that

"It's not like she would have said anything about it if she wasn't. But she works with college kids all the time, I can't be the first bi kid she's ever met."

 _Kid_ is really weird. Ronan's brain fixates on that; compared to everything else he's feeling right now, confusion is fan-fucking-tastic. "How old is she?"

Adam looks even more confused than Ronan feels. "I don't know, forty maybe?"

 _Forty?_ That's basically a hundred years old. "You don't _know_?" Ronan demands.

"It's not like we talk about _her_." He's starting to sound exasperated.

Adam is cheating on him with some mysterious old cougar. She's probably fucking _married_ , how the fuck is this happening, fuck.

"How did you even find her?"

"The health center gave me a referral."

What the fuck kind of school gives you a referral to lecherous old women? "Is she a professor?"

"No? I don't think professors actively practice," oh God, Ronan does not want to hear about what Adam's sugar mama _practices_. "And it would probably be some kind of ethics violation, anyway."

"Oh, so as long as she's not a professor then it's totally ethical for you to sleep with her."

" _What_?" Adam's head snaps over to Ronan, finally looking at him and acting completely shocked, like _Ronan_ is the one who's out of line today. "I am not sleeping with my therapist!"

"What therapist?" Ronan demands. "Since when do you have a therapist?"

"Since four weeks ago! Were you even listening to me?"

"I was listening just fine when you said you were _seeing someone_."

"Seeing a therapist!" Adam glares at him, angry and confused and a hundred other things, like maybe he got swept out to sea, too. "You thought -- you thought I just would just _casually mention_ that I was dating someone else -- "

"You thought you were being _casual_?"

Adam doesn't answer that, probably because he knows it wasn't. "Why would I be seeing someone?"

"Why would you be seeing a _therapist_? You're not crazy."

Adam stares at him for a long second.

"Well for one thing," and there's too much hurt in his voice for him to hide it, even though he's trying, "I'm such a shitty communicator that my boyfriend thinks I'm cheating on him."

Ronan lays out along the barn floor, puts his head in Adam's lap and curls his body up next to his legs. It always makes him feel better to touch Adam; it's also really hard for Adam to stay mad at him like that.

"Sorry," he says, muffled against worn denim. "You scared me."

"I'm scared too, Lynch." The hurt is receding, but it isn't gone. Adam pets his head anyway. "I've been scared to bring this up all month."

"Then why even _go_?"

Adam's hand stops.

"Don't." His voice is completely flat, not risking any emotion at all. "If you hate it then just don't say anything. This has been a really hard decision to make, I can't take you second-guessing me on top of that."

Ronan lays in silence for a while, because he doesn't know how to ask a question without _second-guessing_.

"I thought you were doing okay," he says. It's a question, but it's pretending it isn't.

"Mostly," Adam says. "I want to keep doing okay."

"And this helps?" There's no way to say _therapy_ without sounding like he hates it, so he doesn't.

"I don't know. I think it's too early to tell. I think it could."

Ronan breathes in and out, until he feels like he's got his head safely above water.

"Do you like talking to her more than me?"

"You're asking if I'd rather spend time with you or go to a doctor's appointment. You need to value yourself more than that."

"Yeah?" Ronan asks, hopeful.

"Yeah," Adam says. "I mean, if it was between you and a study session, that would be a hard choice, but -- "

Ronan wrestles him to the ground and shuts him up, although Adam sinks into the kiss so fast he must have been anticipating it.

"Still can't decide?" Ronan asks.

"Mm, I need to think about it some more." Adam pulls him back in, kissing him again and melting against the floor, inviting Ronan to melt along with him. Ronan takes him up on that invitation, and slides his hand up the front of Adam's shirt. Adam shudders and turns his face up, panting.

"Okay," Adam says. "Okay, it's you."

Ronan doesn't know he's going to ask it until he does:

"What if there was someone else?"

"There won't be," Adam says, immediate, like it doesn't matter that he wasn't expecting the question because he already knows the answer. "It's always going to be you."

And he means it. Even if he is going to college and going to therapy and going to change in who knows what kinds of ways because of it, it's there in his eyes, in the set of his shoulders and the tilt of his chin: he absolutely means it.

"Fuck," Ronan breathes.

Adam swallows and then nods, sharp, wordless. Ronan sinks back down to kiss him and press their bodies together. Adam wraps a leg around him, his thigh pressing into Ronan's ass and pulling him down, closer, like Ronan needed the encouragement to grind against him until they're painfully hard.

Ronan lifts back off him just far enough he can fumble with the button on his jeans.

Adam moans, "Lynch, come on."

"Gimme a second."

"No, now."

Ronan's grinning so hard it hurts. He kisses Adam's neck and feels him gasp, and then he pushes himself up until he's kneeling and can actually get his fly open.

Adam groans theatrically at the loss of contact and throws an arm across his face. Every time they have sex in the barn he complains afterwards _that was so gross, I have hay and dirt everywhere, why did we do that,_ as though he's honestly surprised it keeps happening when someone is too goddamn impatient to take his clothes off, let alone move inside the house.

Ronan shoves his pants down around his knees. Adam decides to be helpful and gets his own fly, lifts his hips up enough that he can slide his pants down around his thighs. Ronan takes his hand and pulls him up with it, tries to lean back while Adam is coming forward and ends up sitting on Adam's leg. It takes a few awkward movements before Adam figures out he's supposed to be on top, but it's worth it for his enthusiasm once he gets there, and also for hopefully reducing how much Ronan is going to have to hear later about _we could have gotten tetanus, that was such a bad idea._

Adam spreads out over him, a comfortable weight pressing him down into the earth. His cock slides against Ronan's stomach, the skin there going hot and slick, and when he moves just right their cocks rub up against each other and Ronan swears, colorful and inventive and drowning in Adam's mouth.

Ronan runs his hands up the back of his shirt to feel how hard his chest is working. Adam is kissing Ronan over and over in sharp broken kisses, short and deep with quick shuddering breaths in between. He cradles Ronan's face in one hand, his thumb brushing over Ronan's cheek a few times before he swipes it across his lips, and when Ronan's hips jerk up at that Adam slides his thumb into his mouth and lets Ronan hold it there, circling his tongue over the tip and biting down so so lightly with his teeth.

"Ronan," Adam whispers, his favorite obscenity.

Ronan grabs his ass. He wants to feel Adam in his hands, wants to hold Adam so there's no space between them, so Adam's cock strokes the whole length of his with every thrust.

Adam keeps saying his name over and over in his ear. It's fucking him up. One time Adam gasps it, fast and needy, _Ronan_ , and Ronan comes long before he meant to. He reaches up and tangles a hand in Adam's hair, yanks him up by it until he can kiss Adam savagely. He doesn't slow down or shift position. He needs to feel Adam get off more than he needs to do anything stupid like recover or breathe, and he can tell that Adam is close from the way that he shakes when he inhales, the way his thighs are tensing up where they grip Ronan. Nothing gets Adam as worked up as watching Ronan come, like it's a surprise to him every time, the proof that Ronan really wants him.

"Fuck," Ronan swears, "fuck, Adam, do you know what you do to me?"

Adam kisses his cheek and whimpers, helplessly.

"You drive me _crazy_ , you know that?"

"Oh," Adam pants, "oh, oh, _Ronan_ ," and his hips jerk again Ronan, hard.

Ronan rocks against him while he gasps and shudders and comes, keeps rubbing up against him after he's finished, until Adam is shivering and overstimulated and groaning with new desperation. This is verging on painful, but Ronan doesn't want to stop. He never wants to stop doing anything that involves Adam.

And then Adam kisses him, slow and heavy like syrup and oh, that's just as good, that's better. Ronan lies on the ground and kisses Adam, rests one hand on the small of his back until the faint trembling of muscle under his skin has completely stilled.

Adam rests his head on Ronan's shoulder for a few long deep breaths. Fuck, Ronan likes that, too; the weight of Adam's body on him and the dust of the barn in his nostrils and his heartbeat evening out in his chest, every sense he has telling him _home, home, home_.

"I can't decide if that conversation went better or worse than I thought it would." Adam rises up to his knees and realizes for the first time where they are. "Jesus, how did we do this in the barn again?"

"It's your fault," Ronan says, "mental health is sexy. You should have known I would jump you when you brought it up."

Adam rolls his eyes. "I'll add self-care to your list of irrational turn-ons."

"Uh, pretty sure everyone thinks that's a turn-on," Ronan says. "Self-care means jerking off, right?"

"That's exactly what it means, yeah." Adam looks down at his own body with a grimace. He pulls his half-pushed up shirt all the way off. "I need a shower."

"Is that more self-care?"

Adam stands and does up his pants. "Not if you come with me."

Ronan scrambles up and catches Adam at the door, pulls him back into the barn. Adam gives a halfhearted "hey," but he doesn't fight it when Ronan wraps his arms around him and buries his face in his neck.

"Hey." Ronan clears his throat. "I didn't mean to freak out. I won't do it again."

"Okay," Adam says softly. "Thanks."

"Or, I will freak out," Ronan says. "But it'll be about something else. Probably."

Adam breathes out, a quick exhalation that's hiding a laugh. "Okay. Thanks." He nuzzles the side of Ronan's head.

"We should go inside," Ronan says after a long moment.

"Ugh, yeah," but Adam doesn't let him go.

**Author's Note:**

> If you like this fic, you can [reblog it on tumblr](https://toast-the-unknowing.tumblr.com/post/186148093615/try-to-figure-out-what-all-this-is-for)!


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